Tyra Gittens smashed her own women’s indoor pentathlon national record at the Texas Tech Invitational in Texas, USA, on Friday.

Gittens accumulated 4,612 points in the five-discipline event to improve on the 4,391 standard she had established last February. Friday’s big score propelled the Trinidad and Tobago athlete into second spot on the 2021 world performance list, behind Belgian Noor Vidts, the global leader at 4,665.

Gittens was dominant at the Texas Tech meet, topping four of the five disciplines en route to the new T&T standard. The impressive total was also a Texas A&M University record and the third best collegiate performance in history.

Gittens opened with an 8.33 seconds personal best (PB) in the 60 metres hurdles. There was another PB in the high jump, the 22-year-old clearing the bar at a school record height of 1.91 metres. She then topped the shot put with a 12.94m throw and the long jump with a 6.58m leap before closing off with sixth spot in the 800m in two minutes, 30.86 seconds.

In a social media post, yesterday, Gittens gave her performance a B+ rating.

We have so much to work on and a lot of things did not go well yesterday. But that means there is still a lot of room for improvement!!

Texas A&M head coach Pat Henry was very impressed with his young charge.

What a fantastic day for Tyra and she’s been working really hard. Besides the terrific high jump and a great long jump, it was the first time I’ve ever seen her that aggressive about running the 800 and she didn’t run it real well time wise but I think it’s coming for her. Today she was aggressive and that is a great change for her.

Tatianna Martinez finished first in her section and ninth overall in the Texas Tech Invitational women’s 400m in 56.44 seconds. And in yesterday’s 200m event, the Texas Christian University (TCU) sophomore was 14th fastest in 24.82.